Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The One D&D project. Thoughts?

OneDnD is good, in its essence of changes to a lot of issues in 5e collected by players on it lifespan(ranger fix, race based class, op gwm\ss, 1lvl cleric domain etc). God if they make Warlock INT based and fix a mistake they made by listening to 3.5 purists, i'm gona applaud.

The new Ranger features were mostly just the optional class features from Tasha's, which is certainly fine and good. I was initially excited, and then they gutted Hunter of all it's versatility. Hunter's Lore and the new Multiattack are a big downgrade.

That said, those feature could have used tweaking, but I don't like the way they did it.

Excellent answer. To make so that race does not affect attributes is the most stupid decision I have heard. Of course race should affect stats. What so a tall 2 meter Half Orc should have same race attributes as a little Halfling or Gnome?

I do not think DND 5.0 will end in pen and paper gaming or distance playing example Discord voice chat and ROLLD20 system. That said in computer /console games people like me will try to ignore it and play whatever Dungeons Dragons version is for that PC game.

They have non-stat bonuses that keeps them different, wich, in my honest opinion, is excelent idea!

In 5e ... no matter what you do, (to use your own words) "a tall 2 meter Half Orc have same race attributes as a little Halfling or Gnome" ... sooner or later, that is unavoidable, if you play long enough to reach cap of 20.
It was still possible to even create lvl 1 Half Orc and Gnome with exactly same stats ... sure, it had to be done purposefully, but it was perfectly possible.

Now, no matter what you do, your Orc is allways stronger, bcs his carry weight is doubled, compared to everyone else.
And that is great! Finaly when you have Orc Barbarian, Human Barbarian and Dwarf Barbarian, Orc is strongest!

i do know that DnD 5.0 in later books (not Players Handbook) have optional rule that you can swap stat bonuses. I am fine with that but DnD 5.5 enforces that GM have no choice whatsoever and the default is you can not change race attribute bonuses apply in Dnd 5.0

Well and same stat at level 20 when they increase stats every 4th level? Most pen and paper adventure never reach level 20 or even near it. Same with BG 3 it never reaches even near level 20 and it is great that in BG3 stats can not be swapped so race affects much. In addition many allow for optional rule that choose feats instead and all of them feats do not increase attributes.

The only thing I wish added to BG3 it the option you can roll stats instead of must choose buy point system 27 points.

They added stats to a lot of the feats in the onednd releases, probably because the complaint about having to pick either ASI or feat that may not give any ASI was too restricting, which is an old complaint from the beginning of 5e. A lot of people were coming from 3.5 and 4e, where your ASI and feats were not only separate, but came more often, so to go from 5 ASI boosts AND 10 feats, to 4 (or 7 if you're a fighter) ASI boosts OR feats, was a bit of an ask imo.

I've said it before, but I still think pathfinder 2e did it better, with ASI on your ancestry, background, and class.

When they decided to force the decoupling of racial stat bonuses from races, they finally lost me.

Then the OGL. Oh my goodness, how could they think up such a stupid idea and make it all so transparent? Nah, we'll be skipping 1D&D.

Maybe if someone like Larian does a BG4 with it, turns lemons to lemonade, I'll give it a try. But WotC right now needs to clean house.

Yes Pathfinder 2 is much better then The on Project version DND  but in Pathfinder race affect stats.  If compare to DND 5.0 vs PAthfinder 2  I am more like neutral since Dnd 5.0 is more easy to learn and a newbie might get overwhelmed by the share amount of options to choose in Pathfinder 2.

You know the youtuber Wolfheart that was even invited by Larian studios to visit them? He had posted about the newest Pathfinder 2 game on PC and he said that at times he felt a bit overwhelmed by share amount of options and Wolfheath seems like fairly smart at least gamer and he said this about Pathfinder 2 PC game but praised it at same time much as very good game.

Now Wolfheart I doubt he has any history like me playing DnD 3,5 (Pathfinder was evolved from DND 3.5 so reminds of it more or less)  pen and paper even and I have played DND 5.0 as well as pen and paper. In my book Pathfinder 2 is better then DND 4.0 and One project. However I will not debate DnD 5.0 vs Pathfinder 2 but I can tell that DnD 5,0 is more easy to learn to totally new players that have not played any DND before. Now Dnd 4.0 was really complicated and they removed dice throwing.

DND 5.0 went kind of back to its roots but kept some good parts from DND 4.0. Example the Hunter was copied from World of Warcraft MMO to DND 4.0 but on other hand WOW MMO have pre that taken many ideas from Dungeons Dragons so they are kind of cooperation.

If you check what Dungeons Dragons rules I have played if computer games counts then I have played 2nD edition DnD (BG1 and BG2), DND 3.0 and DnD 3.5 Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, Neverwinter Online MMO DnD 4.0, BG3 Early Access and Solasta DnD 5.0, Pathfinder PC games.

I recently got a bunch of Pathfinder 2e books and I'm finding the character creation way more engaging than 5e character creation tends to be. I love the way they've done ability scores. I feel like I can really hone my characters in a more intersting way. It feels like there's just a lot more flexibility and room to personalize thanks to all the free boosts you get from various sources. Getting boosts from background and class just feels more reasonable as well. I have not been at all interested in one D&D and haven't looked at any of the playtest materials. I'm perfectly in favor of them removing the set recial stat increases entirely, but I just don't care enough about it to want to go for it. I find the Pathfinder setting and 2e system way more interesting. Frankly the only reason I would turn to 5e now is A) the Scarred Lands setting, which I love and B), Pathfinder lacks warlocks, which are my favorite class.

You can probably find someone who has taken the 3.5 Warlock and homebrewed it for pathfinder, it wouldn't be too hard.

EDIT: Directly from the Paizo forums.

This is good to hear. I've only played PF 1e, and am only now beginning to look into PF 2e.

Not even close to what i was talking about ...
But yes, that too.

I dont know what kind of game are you playing ... but at my table GM word is final, unconditionally, allways and without a single doubt ...
So if there is single person that ALLWAYS have a choice, its him.

Again, not what i said ...
Not even single word about "level 20" ... STAT value 20 is cap ... and that is something you can quite easily reach even in Baldur's Gate at level 4 ...

And if you include stat rolling, its not even uncommon to start with STAT at 20 on level 1.

Just imagine:

You play as a Half Orc and roll: 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10 ...
(Not making up the numbers purposefully, i used THIS roller ... and i swear to Gods, this was first values that comes up for me ... lucky huh? )
Now, you are Barbarian ... so you want to be strong ... you have 15 + 2 as your Racial bonus ... you start with 17 Str.

I play as a Gnome and i roll: 18, 15, 15, 13, 10, 9 ...
(Again, exactly what i rolled on the same page ... and believe it or not, it was again first reroll. )
Now ... my Gnome will be a Fighter, i plan to make it Eldrcih Knight later ... so i set 18 on Strenght ... i have no racial bonus to add tho.

But what just happened?
My Gnome on level 1 is not as strong as your Half Orc, its STRONGER!
Using regular 5e rules.

I believe this was confrimmed for final release.
Shouldnt we say next patch at this point?

Stat rolling is not as common in TT these days. For it to be as fair a choice as other methods, you can't allow rerolling or opting out afterwards. The average of the random spread equals default array, so rerolling means other players need stat inflation, but that's a ton of math.

4D6dl = 27pt buy = default array

I've had players opt out after I've reiterated no rerolling. I've also rolled default array!

I have a lot of fond memories of rolling characters, but I’ve had too many instances of players rolling really crappy stats and feeling utterly deflated by it. I am an experienced. playing D&D and will happily play a poorly rolled character (doing it right now in one campaign and having a blast), but for a newer player, being the weakest member of the team often isn’t very fun.

Now all campaigns I run are exclusively point buy, as it provides a more consistent play experience.

1) Depends on table.
2) Not really relevant for topic, since nobody is talking about how common it is.

Again, not relevant for topic ... since nobody is talking about fairness either.
Also, this is pure subjective matter, one could say that nothing is more fair than randomness.

As stated abowe, i didnt reroll even once ...
So, this is (how surprising) also quite irellevant.

Have you even bothered to read before reacting? O_o

I'm honestly not sure where D&D should go from here. The original game was ground-breaking, and so was the standard by which other games were measured. Now, not so much.

Personally, I don't care so much about the physical tabletop experience, I am much more interesteed in how the "digital" experience evolves, and I am not sure that current D&D has much to offer there, as it would need to re-invent itself to be ground-breaking in the digital medium. I suppose that 4e was that attempt at re-invention, but it looked more like a copy of other successful digital IP rather than a genuine attempt to re-imagine D&D.

I continue to hold the D&D lore and world-building in high regard, but I feel the game itself is in decline. I'm sure that many people will hold the opposite view, and will happily support One D&D and future versions, so I expect it's future to be secure.

Well to be honest, using rolling to highlight how it undermines racial archetypes cuts both ways, nullifying its relevance; that 18 could as easily been on a half-orc making it 20, leaving the gnome 15. What does that tell us? Nothing much in itself. You've got to compare like with like.

Oh, rerolling is part and parcel of rolling method. You know as much - you stated they were first rolls, highlighting the fact. Any game with rolling means someone will ask to reroll, human nature and all. Heck it's a core part of BG1&2 character creation, but as single-player games, no one cares.

Nah, 6E designers have an overt agenda behind their decision to remove racial stat bonuses, and won't open this up to true feedback. They act like they know best, but recent behaviour revealed otherwise - quite shockingly! This 'play test' has no where near the level of engagement that 5E had in 2012-14 (mere 40k compared to 200k, even though number of players has exploded - very telling) and is no where near as exhaustive. Not to mention no Mike Mearls or reputable game designers. Current lot need clean housing.

Look at the loss of goodwill, it's playing out in real time with Hasbro stock price. That's where it's tangible. Investors know the way the wind blows because it's their money.

Simply put, WotC is repeating the hubris of 4E 2008. The amount of 'trust us, we know best' parallels are uncanny. Omg, what a trainwreck coming.

Well, the complaint was that lacks of Racial stat bonuses leads to characters with exactly same stats ...
My argument was that this is not a problem of 6e bcs stat rolling caused the same ... wich i presented on very exact example.

What is your point i really dont know.

I stated a hypothesis ... simulated it ... and showed it was corect.
You ... made up some numbers that prooves that ... i dunno, there can be different situation or something like that? O_o
Well thats hardly shocking, is it?

I can work with exactly same likes ... and my point will still be the same:

You roll 18 - 16 - 14 - 8 - 10 - 8

Half-Orc Barbarian will make his Str 20 and his Con 15 ...
Halfling Barbarian will have his Str 18 and his Con 16 ...

On level 4
Half-Orc cant raise his Str futher ... so he incerase his Con to 17 ...
Halfling will raise his Str to 20 ... his Con stay 16 ...

Their modifiers are exactly the same.
Therefore they are both juuust as strong as the other.

Wich is relevant ... how?
And, as the matter of fact, also to what??

This may be just another case of my language block ... but i honestly doubt it.

In our country we define that word as "you tell us what you dis/like on our product and we will read it ... we may even concider including, removing or changing things according to your suggestion ... if we like it and if it will fit our vision, plsns, system, settings, budget etc."
But around here some people seems to read is as: "here is list of my demands ... make it so ... NOW!!!"

Concidering last two years around here ...
It seems that our reading is correct one.

I feel like this can be said about both sides.

Quite bold statement ...
Especially after what happened to Cyberpunk ... i would understand that you may not remember older projects that was released unfinished after investors, shareholders, publishers, or otherwise called people who only cared about their money ... cared only about their money.
But i would ecpect that Cyberpunk was both big enough, and recent enough for everyone to notice. O_o

No one' denying that over levels, races all hit the mortal limit of 20. A gnome fighter playing to their strengths can come close to a similar half-orc, and eventually match. Race was designed to reduce in character importance over levels; it's strongest at 1st and a quaint quirk from 11th+.

But setting and world-building is all tier 1, levels 1-4. This is where baselines are established for immersion. It's no surprise the player of the Str17 half-orc suffers cognisant dissonance when they find their gnome companion has Str17 too. The half-orc archetype they thought they had made is actually just a human-wearing-a-funny-mask.

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Ability scores are front and centre of D&D. Always were and 5E stated this loud and clear. Only thing more important to a character is class, but ability scores directly impact on that too.

Race's biggest impact are to ability scores. All other features are lesser and get mentioned in notes on the character sheet. Players routinely forget their charm resistance, stone working or fearlessness etc. But when they make their Dex check they always add the right modifier.

Playing a nonhuman race in an RPG has always been problematic. Players ask me 'how do I play X?' It's a serious question because we players are all human and want to somehow get into the head of a different being. So fantasy races need to have an archetype reinforced mechanically, in ability scores. Therefore when you take away ability scores you end up homogenizing races - which is exactly WotC's intent with 6E.

6E is trying to undo this 40 year-odd legacy to fit a divisive political viewpoint. There's no denying that proponents of change are mostly on one side of the political spectrum - and how it came to this is squarely on recent WotC management. Mike Mearls, Andy Collins, Monte Cook; big name game designers from late1990s-mid2010s never went down this path; they balanced legacy with flexibility.

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I have no demands from 6E. It's done, I'm out. So are my friends. WotC published Tasha's Cauldron of Things and said 'this is how it will be.' I'll continue to run my 5E games, and frankly this system is pretty solid.

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Btw, there's nothing really shocking about Hasbro's stock diving, it was all part of the OGL debacle, and is old news now. MTG fans could tell us more, they've been griping longer.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/hasbro-continues-destroy-customer-goodwill-212500547.html

This is exactly it for me as well.